Morris Pickholtz - born 1893, or 1892, or maybe both

Morris Pickholtz in London

Morris Pickholtz, Moshe ben Shemuel, married Miss Dora Deitch in London, 10 January 1928. The civil marriage record, from 16 December 1927, tells us that Morris was thirty-five years old and Dora thirty-seven. Both records say that it was the first marriage for each of them. The rabbinical record says he has no brothers.

I had a brief correspondence with some of Dora's family nearly twenty years ago and learned their death and burial information. They had no children.

Morris died in 1933 at age forty and Dora in 1948 at age seventy-three, so her age at marriage (37 in 1927) appears to be wildly false. Morris is buried in East Ham with a simple grave with no information. Dora is in Rainham with a normal tombstone that mentions her many family and friends. 

I was left to ponder who this Morris Pickholtz might be. I had his name Moshe ben Shemuel and a birth year 1892-3, which may be correct. Or not. 

Over the years I have accumulated a few references to people named Morris Pickholtz in UK whom I cannot connect to anyone else.

 

Morris the Woodcarver in Canada

We have a passenger list showing arrivals in Halifax 14 April 1911 which includes Morris Pickholtz, age 18. It says he is a woodcarver but there is a stamp over that saying "farm laborer." He is a Hebrew, born in England. We also see him at St. Albans which is a crossing point into the United States though I cannot tell which way he is going.

He also appears in the 1911 Canadian census, where it says he was born September 1892.

In 1914, he appears on a passenger list returning to England. He is listed as a farmer.

This could be the man who later married Dora Deitch.

 

Morris the Soldier

We have three documents indicating that he was awarded a medal for his service with the King's Royal Rifle Corps in France during WWI. No further information.

 

Could be Dora's future husband or the Canadian farmer or both.

Morris the Farmer Goes to Toronto

On 24 October 1919, Morris Pickholtz, age 29, farmer, arrives in Halifax - destination Toronto. However this one says that his country of birth is Canada.

On 8 April 1923, Morris Pickholz - the same man? - arrives in UK from Canada, planning to settle in England. He is 34 and a fireman.

It would be a stretch to identify him with Dora's husband. I think.

Others to Consider, However Lightly

1. Morris age 17, woodcarver, in the 1911 UK census. This is likely the same Morris we have above in the 1911 Canadian census. (Can the same man appear in both censuses the same year?)
 
2. Morris Pichols, age 7, appears in a list of pupils in the 1901 Cape Census. Birthplace Cape Colony. 

3. Morris Pecholz, born 13 November 1893 in Whitechapel. Parents are Hannah Bader (elsewhere called Annie Bedder) and Jacob Pecholz.

The age is close if he were Dora's husband, but the father's name is Jacob, not Samuel.

On the other hand, we have a partial marriage record from the London rabbinate for Morris Pickholtz with the same date as the one at the beginning of this blog. But there here it says Moshe ben Yaakov (Jacob). If it was just an error, why not just throw it out. And its serial number is 155, while the one shown here at the top is 184.

 

Moses Rywen Pickholz from Strzeliska Nowe

Samuel, the son of Hersch Leib Pikholz and Sara Rosenzweig, from Rozdol (the IF1 family), married Ryfke Fenster, the daughter of Isak and Chinke from nearby Strzeliska Nowe. They had eight children, though someone in the family thought there were nine or ten.

 

Chinke and Pinkas died in infancy 

Hersch Leib moved to South Africa

Abraham and Isak married sisters (perhaps half-sisters) and lived in Argentina

Jack and Golda, supposedly in Argentina but I have not found an actual trace of them

Moses Rywen, born 22 June 1893

Could this Moses Rywen be Dora's husband? Moshe ben Shemuel is correct and the birth date is close enough. For several years I thought that could be the case, but in keeping with my conservative nature I did not record it that way in my Brother's Keeper database.

A couple of days ago, Mark Halpern announced that there were some newly indexed records available on JRI-Poland, including records for Strzeliska Nowe. I looked and found this:

A look at the actual record via the link on the left gave me the date of the marriage - 20 December 1922 - and the age (29 years, 3 months, 28 days) and that let me calculate his birth date as 23 August 1893. That's the same ballpark as all the listings above (and two months later than his own birth record!).

Morris the farmer was in Canada at the time, but this could be the same as Morris the woodcarver, Morris the soldier and Morris the husband of Dora. But the civil marriage to Dora says that was his first marriage and the rabbinic record says that he has no brothers, so I now consider it very unlikely that this Moses Rywen is the man who married Dora Deitch. Who did, I don't know. And what happened to Moses Rywen and his wife Ryfka Weinreb? 

We have very few Pikholz descendants in either the UK or Canada and the repetition of the given named Morris/Moshe, Samuel and Jacob has me flummoxed.

As I conclude this piece, I see that I have discussed this before - here - but with this new marriage  record, I suppose it's worth repeating. And I see that the one back then was meant to be the first of several. Maybe I'll get back to that series now.